TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
NADA President Mike Stanton joined the show today to talk FTC pricing, the fight against direct sales, and a $40 million theme park reception. Also today: what easier auto credit is actually covering for, and why dealer service bays are becoming the real profit engine.
Also in today's email:
Why easier credit access isn't the good news it looks like
Parts and service departments quietly becoming dealers' most important profit center
China's car market is in freefall, and it's flooding exports everywhere else, including the U.S.
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
Reading time: 4 mins
First-time reader? Subscribe Here!
🦆 What did the duck say to the service advisor?
Find out at the bottom.
Dealers Did 96% of New-Car Sales Last Year. NADA Wants 100%.
NADA President Mike Stanton joined the show to lay out the association's priorities heading into the back half of the year, from FTC pricing compliance to the fight against direct sales and Chinese OEM entry, all pointing back to one number: dealers moved 96% of new-car sales last year, and NADA wants that closer to 100%.
They really are our best lobbyists.
Stanton told a story about a senator in Wyoming who cut him off mid-thank-you to hear directly from the dealers who actually hire and generate revenue in his state. It's the same logic behind NADA's September Washington Conference: state associations set the meetings, NADA supplies the talking points, and dealers bring the thing lawmakers actually showed up to hear.
Want the full conversation?
🎙️ Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion.
WHERE ARE THEY?!
It should not take a Batman-level interrogation to find a vehicle.
CarRx helps your team locate inventory from a desktop or mobile device, check battery and fuel levels, and keep vehicles ready for customers.
Less time searching the lot. More time moving the sale forward.
Credit Just Got Easier to Access. That's Not Entirely Good News.
Auto credit availability hit its highest level since December 2015 in July. Sitting right next to that headline in the same report: loan terms over 72 months at an all-time high, negative equity up 269 basis points year over year, and real wages negative for four straight months.
📊 Worth noting
Wholesale depreciation is moderating overall, but the Luxury Car segment just posted its steepest weekly decline since October, exactly the segment most exposed to a stretched buyer pulling back first.
Consider this today
An easier approval isn't the same thing as a healthier buyer. The terms and equity data suggest lenders are stretching to qualify people, not simply opening the door wider.
Dealers Are Leaning Harder on Service Bays as New-Car Margins Soften
Parts and service gross profit at public dealership groups climbed from $3.3 million to $5 million per store since 2020, even as new-vehicle margins have cooled. Finance and insurance is punching even further above its weight, contributing just 4% of revenue at one major group but 23% of gross profit.
If you lose $10 of new vehicle revenue, you only have to pick up $1 of service to have your gross margin remain flat. It's 5% new car margin, 50% service margin.
The catch?
Dealers are winning the profit numbers while losing market share. Dealer share of service visits dropped from 33% to 29% since 2017, while chain shops like Jiffy Lube and Meineke went from 20% to 42% of consumers naming them their "primary" service provider in the same window. Profit per store is up. The share of the pie going to franchised dealers isn't.
China's Car Market Is Cratering, and the Fallout Is Landing Everywhere Else
China's new passenger vehicle sales fell 25% in July, a seventh straight month of decline, with the market on pace for its first-ever double-digit annual drop. Automaker margins have collapsed to 3.4%, down from 7.8% in 2017.
The pressure valve is exports: Chinese carmakers shipped 5.35 million vehicles overseas in the first seven months of the year, up 73% year over year. That's the exact dynamic NADA's Mike Stanton flagged on today's show as a national security concern, dealers broadly aligned on keeping Chinese OEMs out of the U.S. market in the near term.
A U.S.-Canada Deal Could Cut Auto Tariffs From 25% to 15%
Washington and Ottawa are closing in on a deal that would lower the top-line tariff on Canadian-built vehicles to 15%, down from 25%, alongside a reduced rate on steel and aluminum. Nothing is finalized. Tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods are still scheduled to take effect Saturday unless a deal lands first, and Canadian officials have pushed for an even lower 10% rate.
Worth watching before treating this as settled. The effective rate would likely land lower still once U.S.-content deductions are factored in, but the timeline is fluid enough that this could look very different by the weekend.
🚘 Car Stuff
GM and Ford are racing to put AI assistants in vehicles. GM is rolling out Google Gemini across 4 million vehicles while building a proprietary in-house assistant, and Ford's smartphone-based assistant will reach 8 million customers by year end ahead of a 2027 in-vehicle launch.
Genesis unveiled its flagship GV90 SUV, complete with coach doors, a built-in refrigerator, and a price tag expected to reach the $150,000-plus range for top trims.
European hybrid sales are still growing, just not as fast. New hybrid deliveries across Western and Central Europe rose 12.3% year over year in the first half of 2026, down from 15.6% growth the year before. Italy led the pack, with hybrids now making up over half of all new-car sales in the country.
💰 Not Car Stuff
Walmart posted its slowest U.S. sales growth in six years. Comparable sales rose just 2.6% in Q2, down from 4.1% in Q1, with shares tumbling more than 8% as investors read it as a sign that lower-income shoppers are pulling back on spending.
The FCC scrapped its gigabit internet speed goal. The agency eliminated the long-term 1,000/500 Mbps benchmark set under the Biden administration, calling it unfair to slower technologies like satellite and fixed wireless, and concluded current broadband deployment already meets legal standards.
A humanoid robot says it can now outrun Usain Bolt. Unitree's newest prototype reportedly hit 28.3 mph and cleared a 6.5-foot standing jump after just three months of development, days ahead of its parent company's IPO on Shanghai's stock exchange.
1897: Ransom Eli Olds founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Lansing, Michigan, the company that would eventually become Oldsmobile.
1911: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, a theft that helped turn the painting into one of the most famous artworks in the world.
1959: President Eisenhower signed the executive order officially making Hawaii the 50th state.
Thanks for reading, Friend!
Duck’s don’t talk, yall. What else would he say?
